Enabling Business Action for Sustainable Future: Will India lead or lag?

Background: Over the past five years, the Indian government has increasingly focused its efforts to encourage responsible business practices. Within the framework of the Prime Minister’s Social Charter for “Inclusive Growth” (2007), the private sector was acknowledged as important for job creation and balanced economic development.

The Government through its Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) took up the theme in 2008 and released the National Voluntary Guidelines (NVGs) in July 2011, which is a big step towards mainstreaming the concept and providing an “Indian understanding and approach” to responsible business behavior which is also aligned with international norms and frameworks. The National Innovation Council (NIC) under the Office of the Prime Minister has the goal to address India’s innovation gap, while promoting sustainability driven innovations.

But the challenge is also to include Micro Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in this responsibility and Innovation agenda: India’s 26 Million MSMEs cannot stay competitive by participating in a “race to the bottom” and lowering prices, standards and quality. Instead, they need to contribute to developing solutions for a sustainable economic development, as is highlighted in the National Manufacturing Plan.

Theme: How government and business work together towards sustainable and inclusive development can will be the core question of the discussion.

Event & Broad Agenda: The event will start include a keynote address by Dr. Veerappa Moily, Minister of Corporate Affairs, which will set the context for an engaging panel discussion (for an hour) followed by 20 minutes of interaction with the audience. It will be a high level event drawing thought leaders and speakers from government, business and civil society. The audience will include senior management and CEOs of businesses, senior officials from different ministries and agencies, and national and international NGOs and government representatives.

MINT-IICA-GIZ CSR Initiative Partnership: The premier business newspaper, MINT has adopted the campaign ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’ which comprises a series of 12 editorials to inform and clarify the concept of business responsibility to its readership from being a mere ‘add-on’, to highlighting it as a business imperative that needs to be woven into the very fabric of a company. The partnership of the IICA-GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH) CSR Initiative with MINT (the bilateral Project between IICA and GIZ) is aimed at contributing to its endeavor to scale up the adoption National Voluntary Guidelines (NVGs) as a means to spur business action towards sustainable development.